Oct. 19, 1876] 



NATURE 



549 



which are thrown in the way of scientific training by the 

 existing system of school education. Not only are men 

 trained in mere book-work, ignorant of what observation 

 means, but the habit of learning from books alone begets 

 a disgust of observation. The book-learned student will 

 rather trust to what he sees in a book than to the witness 

 of his own eyes. 



There is not the slightest reason why this should be so, 

 and, in fact, when elementary education becomes that 

 which I have assumed it ought to be, this state of things 

 will no longer exist. There is not the slightest difficulty 

 in giving sound elementary instruction in physics, in 

 chemistry, and in the elements of human physiology in 

 •ordinary schools. In other words, there is no reason 

 why the student should not come to the medical school 

 provided with as much knowledge of these several 

 sciences as he ordinarily picks up in the course of his 

 first year of attendance at the medical school. 



I am not saying this without full practical justification 

 for the statement. For the last eighteen years we have 

 had in England a system of elementary science teaching 

 carried out under the auspices of the Science and Art 

 Department, by which elementary scientific instruction 

 is made readily accessible to the scholars of all the ele- 

 mentary schools in the country. Commencing with small 

 beginnings, carefully developed and improved, that sys- 

 tem now brings up for examination as many as seven 

 thousand scholars in the subject of human physiology 

 al jne ; and I can say that out of that number a large 

 proportion have acquired a fair amount of substantial 

 knowledge, and that no inconsiderable percentage show 

 as good an acquaintance with human physiology as used 

 to be exhibited by the average candidates for medical de- 

 grees in the University of London when I was first an 

 examiner there twenty years ago, and quite as much 

 knowledge as is possessed by the ordinary student of 

 medicine at the present day. I am justified, therefore, in 

 looking forward to the time when the student who pro- 

 poses to devote himself to medicine will come, not abso- 

 lutely raw and inexperienced as he is at present, but in a 

 certain state of preparation for further study ; and I look 

 to the university to help him still further forward in that 

 stage of preparation, through the organisation of its bio- 

 logical department. Here the student will find means of 

 acquainting himself with the phenomena of life in their 

 broadest acceptation. He will study not botany and zoo- 

 logy, which, as I have said, would take him too far away 

 from his ultimate goal ; but, by duly arranged instruction, 

 combined with work in the laboratory upon the leading 

 types of animal and vegetable life, he will lay a broad 

 and at the same time solid foundation of biological know- 

 ledge ; he will come to his medical studies with a com- 

 prehension of the great truths of morphology and of 

 physiology, with his hands trained to dissect and his eyes 

 taught to see. I have no hesitation in saying that such 

 preparation is worth a full year added on to the medical 

 curriculum. In other words, it will set free that much 

 time for attention to those studies which bear directly 

 upon the student's most grave and serious duties as a 

 medical practitioner. 



Up to this point I have considered only the teaching 

 aspect of your great foundation, that function of the uni- 

 versity in virtue of which it plays the part of a reservoir 

 of ascertained truth, so far as our symbols can ever inter- 

 pret nature. All can learn ; all can drink of this lake, 

 it is given to few to add to the store of knowledge, to 

 strike new springs of thought, or to shape new forms of 

 beauty. But so sure as it is that men live not by bread, 

 but by ideas, so sure is it that the future of the world 

 lies in the hands of those who are able to carry the in- 

 terpretation of nature a step further than their predeces- 

 sors, so certain is it that the highest function of a univer- 

 sity is to seek out those men, cherish them, and give their 

 ability to serv« their kind full play. 



I rejoice to observe that the encouragement of re- 

 search occupies so prominent a place in your official 

 documents, and in the wise and liberal inaugural ad- 

 dress of your president. This subject of the encou- 

 ragement, or, as it is sometimes called, the endowment 

 of research, has of late years greatly exercised the 

 minds of men in England. It was one of the main 

 topics of discussion by the members of the Royal Com- 

 mission of whom I was one, and who not long since 

 issued their report, after five years' labour. Many seem 

 to think that this question is mainly one of money ; that 

 you can go into the market and buy research, and that 

 supply will follow demand, as in the ordinary course of 

 commerce. This view does not commend itself to my 

 mind. I know of no more difficult practical problem 

 than the discovery of a method of encouraging and sup- 

 porting the original investigator without opening the door 

 to nepotism and. jobbery. My own conviction is admi- 

 rably summed up in the passage of your president's 

 address, " that the best investigators are usually those 

 who have also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining 

 thus the incitement of colleagues, the encouragement of 

 pupils, and the observation of the public." 



At the commencement of this address I ventured to 

 assume that I might, if I thought fit, criticise the arrange- 

 ments which have been made by the board of trustees, 

 but I confess that I have little to do but to applaud them. 

 Most wise and sagacious seems to me the determination 

 not to build for the present. It has been my fate to see 

 great educational funds fossilise into mere bricks and 

 mortar, in the petrifying springs of architecture, with 

 nothing left to work the institution they were intended to 

 support. A great warrior is said to have made a desert 

 and called it peace. Administrators of educational funds 

 have sometimes made a palace and called it a university. 

 If I may venture to give advice in a matter which lies 

 out of my proper competency, I would say that whenever 

 you do build, get an honest bricklayer, and make him 

 build you just such rooms as you really want, leaving 

 ample space for expansion. And a century hence, whjn 

 the Baltimore and Ohio shares are at one thousand 

 premium, and you have endowed all the professors you 

 need, and built all the laboratories that are wanted, and 

 have the best museum and the finest library that can be 

 imagined ; then if you have a few hundred thousand 

 dollars you don't know what to do with, send for an 

 architect and tell him to put up a fagade. If American 

 is similar to English experience, any other course will 

 probably lead you into having some stately structure, 

 good for your architect's fame, but not in the least what 

 you want. 



It appears to me that what I have ventured to lay down 

 as the principles which should govern the relations of a 

 university to education in general, is entirely in accord- 

 ance with the measures you have adopted. You have set 

 no restrictions upon access to the instruction you propose 

 to give ; you have provided that such instruction, either 

 as given by the university or by associated institutions, 

 should cover the field of human intellectual activity. You 

 have recognised the importance of encouraging research. 

 You propose to provide means by which young men, who 

 may be full of zeal for a literary or for a scientific career, 

 but who also may have mistaken aspiration for inspiration, 

 may bring their capacities to a test and give their powers 

 a fair trial. If such an one fail, his endowment terminates 

 and there is no harm done. If he succeed, you may give 

 power of flight to the genius of a Davy or a Faraday, a 

 Carlyle or a Locke, whose influence on the future of his 

 fellow men shall be absolutely incalculable. 



You have enunciated the principle that the " Glory of 

 the university should rest upon the character of the 

 teachers and scholars, and not upon their numbers or 

 buildings constructed for their use." And I look upon it 

 as an essential and most important feature of your plan 



